Teaching Support

The HPC facilities operated by Research Computing may be used in support of regular academic courses at the graduate level. The knowledge and skills acquired in these courses will benefit students who need HPC resources for their research. Please observe the following guidelines to ensure that the experience is positive for students and instructors alike.

Students: Request Account

Students that need to access HiPerGator for course-related activities should complete the account request form. In the “Comments” section of the form, be sure to indicate that your request is to be added to the class group for course number “AAA 1234” (of course, you should use the actual course number for your class in the request).

Please note that class accounts will expire (and any associated data deleted) two weeks after the “Classes End” date listed for the semester:

Instructors: Course Support Guidelines

The instructor must notify Research Computing of the intent to use HPC facilities and request HPC resources at least two weeks prior to the start of the semester.

Student assignments and projects should be designed to fall within the realm of class limits which are the use of 32 CPU cores simultaneously by all students in the class. GPU access will be limited to 8 at a time for the class unless prior arrangements are made. These limits should be taken into account when considering assignments and projects for the class.

The instructor must assign or act as a teaching assistant (TA) for the course. The TA should be familiar with HPC Center policies and practices including job submission. Students should speak with their TA about problems and the TA should file all course-related support cases via the UFRC support request system.

One class period should be set aside for an orientation given by a Research Computing staff member. The orientation will cover basic job submission and storage policies. The faculty member and the TA must plan to attend this training class so that everyone involved is aware of the policies and guidelines.

Software to be used for the course should be determined prior to the start of the course. The HPC Center supports a large number of users and projects. The stability and reliability of the software environment is of great importance and must be maintained. Although software may be installed in support of a specific course, instructors should endeavor to design projects and assignments based on currently installed applications. We will be happy to discuss software requirements with prospective course instructors.